Summer 2024 writing

Hi everyone. It has felt too busy to write, but looking back I’ve actually written a lot since my last letter. Here’s what I’ve been up to.

I described how we chose my son’s name for his birthday at the end of August.

As always, user agency is on my mind. I wrote about my concerns that passkeys impair it, and how custom emoji further it. I’ve quoted it before, but a phrase from Brent Simmons lives in my head:

But if we don’t have this power that is ours, then I don’t actually care about computers at all. It meant everything.

I’ve added a new chronological section to my site: TIL, a notebook for (mostly sysadmin/programming) things I’ve learned. I’ve published 10 TILs since I added the section last month, including a CSS rant, a method for retrieving HTML tags from the macOS clipboard, an investigation of a problem with a Git hook, a guide for using lunr.js with Hugo describing how I added search, and several more.

I’ll still publish some technical stuff on the blog too. A post about SVGs generated feedback that taught me something new about how sprite sheets work, and it was a lot of fun to work on (I built that diagram by hand).

I’ll end with a drink. Or a few drinks. A whole class of them in fact. 1900 words about the old fashioned cocktail, with several recipes to try.

I’d love to hear from you: me@micahrl.com.

PS: I hope this saying catches on.